Creating a website

In today’s competitive global market, having an online presence is nothing short of vital to the success of any new or small enterprise.

Creating a website has become incredibly easy in recent years, with many different options now available. From WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) drag-and-drop designs to ready-made templates, professional website and mobile web design, there are plenty of ways you can bring your brand to life online.

Creating a website

The first thing you will need to do when getting your website up and running is registering your domain.

This is the website address itself – e.g., www.yourcompany.com. Ideally, you should check to see if your domain is available at the time you are forming your company and choosing the business name. This will help to ensure your branding remains consistent both online and offline. If you find that your domain name is taken, you may wish to try changing the extension – for example, if your chosen domain ending in .co.uk is unavailable, you could try .com, .uk, or .scot instead.

You will then need to choose a platform on which to host your website. Hosting simply means the process of connecting your designed site to the internet; when a website is “hosted”, all of the files found within it (e.g. images, text, video, etc.) are collated in one place on the web (your website) so that users from all over the world can access them. Traditional platforms include HTML and CSS, but the advent of Content Management Systems (or CMS) have revolutionized the way in which websites can be hosted and designed. This is because these are incredibly user-friendly sites both from an end-user and designer’s perspective, so even if you have little to no experience in creating a website, you will be able to get set-up quickly with relative ease, something that can be advantageous to small businesses. Many of these platforms are free to use as well, and have a number of ready-made templates with things like e-commerce capabilities built in, simplifying the process substantially.

Of course, one important component of your website is having a Contact page through which new and existing customers can reach you. This means ensuring you have an email account set up along with the website. This will normally be a prefix such as “contact” or “info” for example, ending in the domain name (e.g. info@companyname.com). If you require assistance with your email or hosting, a professional website formation company will be able to help, saving you time, money and stress.

Building your website

Building the site itself can be a time-consuming task, which is why many business owners will entrust a professional web design agency to do it. There is, of course, a cost associated with hiring a professional, but prices can vary substantially depending on whether you hire a freelancer or work with a large agency. Alternatively, DIY options are available for those who have the time to build their own website.